Sunday, January 4, 2009

Morhealthity: confessions of a fake health and safety advocate

Well, I have a confession to make and it makes me sick just thinking about what I have done. But, in my defense, I did it all in the name of preserving freedom. For about a week in 2008 I wrote a blog called Morhealthity - Beyond Liberty: Legislating Safety, Health, & Morality. As you can see, it was an exercise in stupidity and narcissism, void of freedom-loving values, tolerance, and common sense - but it was 'logical'. Honestly, it made me feel like a dirty person; a nazi or some other kind of grotesque totalitarian pontificating morality and social structure.

In the past I have said that smoke bans, excessive tobacco taxation, and most health and safety laws imposed on individuals are intellectually bankrupt ideas as they fail to preserve our freedoms. In fact, freedom is inherently risky, like life, and that is what makes it precious. So for about a week I put myself in the mentality that many of our contemporary legislators and health and safety advocates use.... and the results were clearly disastrous. Using their logic I easily managed to justify making hair dye illegal, closing down any business where an accident may happen, and created posses to try and tame and manage the 'dirty' smokers in our society. While I only wrote about a handful of ideas, my mind conjured up hundreds - like banning grilling, sizzling fajitas, bar-b-q, or any type of cooking that produces carcinogens or smoke - oddly the smoking bans have never addressed any of these realities. In addition, I started to think about how horrible the sight of smokers and 'less than physically perfect' people might have on our children.... maybe we should keep them out of sight... The most horrific thoughts popped into my head many times a day. Every time something bad happened in the news, I would think: 'close it down', 'ban it', 'tax it', 'legislate and control', etc....

This is what happens when individual liberty is displaced as the highest value of a society.... and I truly fear what the future holds if we do not get a grip on our most precious values! Remember, that our constitution guarantees the individual right to the pursuit of happiness! And remind your friends and legislators too.... Health, Safety, and Longevity are all useless without Freedom. And while every man dies, not every man lives well and the government has no right to tell people what will make them happy.

There are billions of dollars funnelled into the anti-smoking campaigns, both by the tobacco companies (capitalism's greatest irony), the cancer, lung, heart institutes, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (winner of the 2008 Anti-Smoking Hypocrisy Award), drug companies, and the Robert Wood Johnson foundation - just to name a few.... These lobbies work day and night pressuring legislators to pass these feel good laws. And they continue to succeed. In the end, all I can think of now is what a massive waste of human life and intelligence this has been. After all, couldn't these do-gooders accomplish so much more addressing war, genocide, disease, mal-nutrition, potable water, education, etc.... ??? Our legislators continue to restrict what individuals choose to do to themselves instead of fighting the injustices that we do to each other.

Apartments and Condominiums throughout the country are now making smoking illegal both indoors and on balconies because some tenants hate the smell - will they legislate what and how you can cook next?